Crowdcast Reap: Sales Strategies and Support during Covid-19

In case you missed our sales strategies and support webinar here is the link to the replay and the notes we used to put it together.

Watch the replay HERE

If you have any questions, concerns or just want some guidance, please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]. We will do our best to help or at least point you in the right direction.

Cheers,
Liz and Stormy

Sales Strategies to support you and your community

How do you keep revenue flowing during COVID-19? Let’s talk about activating your virtual community, alternative revenue streams and where to find support.

What we covered:

• Things you can implement immediately to get revenue flowing & keep your community engaged.
• Things you can put into place that will help you over the next few months
• What we expect to come from this and where you can find support

Immediate implementation to get revenue through your doors

I think this goes without saying but take a hard look at your monthly expenses and see what you can scale back or do away with in the short term to free up some extra cash.

Sell Virtual offices and mailboxes

• Now more important than ever since so many people are working from home and likely don’t want their home address listed to the public but still need to receive snail mail.
• There are so many virtual services out there. Anytime mailbox, Sphere Mail, Cloudvo, Davinci- the works.
  • Even if you are technically closed you can still offer this service as it allows you to handle the mail and scan it to your customers/members or have one on one pick up if necessary.
  • Allows everyone who is working from home to have an address that is not their personal address

If you want more info about generating revenue through Virtual mailboxes and offices- get on Cat’s crowdcast. Sign up here.

Offer paid lunch and learns- just virtual

No different than a lunch event winin your space where you position another entrepreneur or small business that has a service or product you think would be valuable to your community. Pick a topic, find a local entrepreneur that can help host it. Set up an eventbrite page and zoom call and get to promoting. Good for you, good for the host, good for your people.

One of the silver linings that has come from all of this is the resurgence of people caring about supporting small businesses. There is a new awareness of how patronizing a small business really affects the local community.

Offer Specials- the coworking version of a gift card

• Offer discounted memberships. Buy now and get an extra month free if membership is activated in the next 6 months. This is the coworking equivalent of a gift card.
• Offer a discounted bundle of meeting room hours reduce the rate for the package by 15-25% to get people to click buy without a second though

Tutoring

If you are a space with childcare that is no longer open for physical visits, have your teachers host 30-hour long paid classes for the older kids or offer tutoring in your unbooked meeting rooms while kids are out of school. Maybe it is free for your members but paid to the public.

Band together with other local small businesses and share each other’s work/offerings.

You never know who from someone else’s network needs what you are offering and vice versa. Set up kicks backs, affiliate commissions or revenue share programs so you both win.

Remind your members that you’re a small business and we’re in this together.

Ways to keep your community engaged- Liz

• Offer online work sprints – set a consistent time daily or weekly so your crew knows when you are available and will be hosting. This will allow them to plan their days around it.
• Spend some time checking in 1 on 1 with your community in whatever way works best for you.Open up your zoom rooms for an hour a day for people to connect with you. We’ve seen Cat & Angel doing this well.
• Encourage staying connected via slack channel (or whatever you use)
• Provide frequent updates via newsletters/ online channels
• Curate online events on different topics (example a lunch and learn we mentioned previously)
• Aggregate community discounts in your area. You can do this on a local level to help support the local small businesses in your community or by tieing into a larger network like GCUC Community membership and included.co
• Set up a get and give online board. Ask your community what they need and what they can give. Example- copywriting in trade for a 30 minute crash course on sales tactics.

If you head to GCUC.co blog you can see the full list we put together to help activate your virtual community here.

Smart ideas and things we have seen done:

• Rename your meeting rooms – “virtual conference rooms”
• Offer services that people don’t necessarily have at home
  • Notary (if you’re not it’s easy to do online)
  • Scanning / fax (who still uses these?)
  • Printing
  • Paper shredding drop off
  • Outgoing mail (if they want to avoid the post office)
  • You can buy branded sanitizer for companies like Marco and Uline everything branded literally sent out an email yesterday saying they had supplies back in stock.
  • A space in san angelo did a full covid package- drive up coffee and printing. Get creative.
  • Curbside delivery of applicable services

Things we learned from the women who cowork call earlier this week:

• Virtual happy hour so everyone can still get together and connect.
• Spaces that are still open: measuring tapes to show how far 6’ is. Keep it humorous.
• Meeting room credits for members. Costs you nothing but makes members feel seen and they benefit.
• Online presence is important for operators: google hangouts, fb, slack.
• Controlling emotions with talkspace (therapy app)

Implementation now that will affect your books over the next few months: Stormy

• No refund policy (some are offering a discount towards next month or rolling over hours) – for March & April
  • Remind them you’re in it together and a small business
  • Remind them you’re keeping the space clean
  • You’ve fulfilled obligations to the best of your ability due to the circumstances
  • Work one on one with your members to come up with a solution so that you can keep them in the community.

Market New Membership offerings when you can be open to the public:

Build a student discount and run specials for college students that are home and need a place to study and do their on-line classes. (GCUC members- we just released a resource on attracting students to your space)

If you are not a GCUC Member and want access to this resource and many more, sign up here.

• Part-Time memberships for parents that have their kids home and need to get some work done – may not currently be your demographic but the reality of the way work as we know it is going, the part time parent membership is likely going to be on the rise.
• Market to amenities:
  • Some people need to just upload large files, offer plans just for them. Home wifi solutions are not always reliable.
  • Virtual offices
  • Podcast rooms
• Re-open to drop-ins via deskpass, croissant, upsuite etc. when we are out of the social distancing phase.
• If you have unclaimed and available offices and not enough meeting rooms consider reallocating some of those unclaimed offices to be a ‘zoom room’ or do rent them out on a daily basis like a day pass for office. THis allows you to capitalize on unused space but also keep the availability open if someone comes in half way through the month and wants to sign a lease.
• Offer a nice referral bonus to your members and friends

Where we see this going and what will come of it. – Liz

Here’s the thing. We don’t know what we don’t know and we are all riding it out together. It’s likely going to get worse before it gets better but we are all feeling it and will be working towards a solution.

• There are many companies putting together relief funds.
  Amazon commited over 6 million in small business relief fund grants for businesses impacted by covid in Seattle (close proximity to their campus)
• Facebook pledged over 100 Million in cash grants and ad credit to help businesses affected.
• SBA has put together a relief program. Small business loans are available through most banks if you need them.
• Landlords will have to give concessions because no one is going to be able to pay. We are already starting to see this with local apartment properties here in ATX.
• Satellite Desksworks just put out this great resource on how to talk to your landlord. Check it out here.

Be thankful for your health. Make sure you are checking in on others in your community. Do your part to be the solution.